'You're supposed to have it'
long here. You're not supposed to...
You're not really supposed to shave it much, and you're not supposed to wear a moustache.
Two years ago, I filmed an extraordinary family going through a life-changing experience.
When I first met Ephraim and Amanda, they lived in a culture that shunned the modern world.
They were Amish, an ultra-conservative American church
where cars, electricity and modern clothing are totally forbidden.
The Amish look like they're from another century.
But when Ephraim and Amanda challenged the beliefs of the Amish, they were thrown out of the church.
They were shunned by their friends and family, cut off from the world they'd been born into.
It hurts to see my family struggling, and my family...
.. going upside down about it.
When I last filmed with them, they were on the brink of leaving the Amish way of life for good.
But they had yet to join the modern world.
I'd often wondered if they could ever really get away
from the culture that had made them who they were.
I wanted to know if they could ever really leave the Amish.
OK, let's go to the water.
It's been a few years since I last saw Ephraim and his family,
and I caught up with them on a tour of the British Isles.
They'd been invited over by people who'd seen the first film, and had wanted to meet them.
This is the first time they've been to a beach, and it's the first time they've ever been abroad.
Leaving the Amish has transformed their lives.
CAMERA CLICKS
I hated my Amish clothes, I hated wearing suspenders, I hated everything.
'I guess I can be myself now, whereas continuing'
to go back to the Amish church was... I was trying to be someone that I'm not.
My heart wasn't there any more.
Being away from home for the first time
has made them think hard about what they want to do with their lives.
'It has been a time of sitting back and reflecting and saying, '
"What is our life supposed to be? What are we supposed to be doing?
"Where do we go from here?
"Where does the Lord want us to be?"
Don't you know that we're all going to appear before the judgment seat of Christ...?
There's one thing Ephraim IS sure of. He wants to save souls.
.. everything that we've done. If you hear my voice, please consider, every day 150,000 people will die.
It's this kind of thing that got him thrown out of the Amish church in the first place.
There's coming a day that God is going to judge the world in sin, righteousness and judgment...
Here you go, buddy, a fake trillion for you.
Above all, the Amish believe in humility.
They consider Ephraim's preaching to be nothing but pride.
Take it and read it, there's a little test on the back.
You've got to turn it around,
and when you get some time, just do the test there and you'll see if you'll get to heaven.
It's the gospel... Ephraim's spent his time here in Britain spreading the gospel.
He hasn't had to work at all, and it's been a revelation.
..the gospel message for you.
It's amazing.
The Amish are famous for their fierce work ethic,
and Ephraim's always worked hard to support his family.
But no more.
Shall we pray?
Our Father, thank you for this food.
We ask that you would bless it to our bodies, Father.
He's now decided to only do God's work,
and to trust completely in God to provide for all his family's needs.
I've always had a secure job where money has never been an issue.
And I expect the next couple of years will be different.
You got your jackets? Put your jackets on, children.
'I don't want to have a seven to five job.
'But if the Lord just provides for us, that's all we need.
'He says, "Follow me, seek my kingdom and my righteousness, everything else will be added,"
'and that's my confidence. '
And so now we're ready to head back home and really...
..think about our life, and, yeah, walk the plan we have now.
Relying only on faith to sustain them,
Ephraim's bringing his family back to Pennsylvania, home of the same Amish community that rejected them.
Ephraim was born and raised in Lancaster County,
home of the first and oldest Amish community in America.
Over the centuries, America has changed dramatically.
But the Amish have not,
and their old-fashioned ways are nostalgically envied by their modern cousins.
The unofficial capital of Amish country here in Lancaster is a small town called Intercourse.
It's an ironic name for a town that attracts millions of tourists
who come to see the wholesome lifestyle of the Amish.
'Yeah, we went on a tour through Amish land'
and saw how the people lived, the Amish people, very interesting.
They just fascinate me, the way they operate, everything is done the old-fashioned way.
Maybe we should go back to that way of life.
Maybe we'd have more peace in this world if we did.
The tourists who come here see a chocolate-box version of the Amish.
'They don't fight amongst each other, they don't have a whole bunch of politics,
'they all eat the same way, they all dress the same way, '
they all work the same way, they all travel the same way.
There's no competition, which makes life happy.
But the Amish are anything but simple.
Just like any other group of people, they have complex problems and deep divisions.
But this is kept hidden from outsiders,
because the strict rules the Amish live by forbid them from being filmed.
I filmed these shots from quite a distance.
This is about as close as you can get without causing offence.
The only way to see the true nature of Amish life is to film with those who are on their way out.
Elsie Miller has been Amish all her life, and so has her husband Jesse.
But that's about to change.
Just before I came to film with them, they'd had a visit.
Their Amish ministers had come to warn them they were about to be thrown out of the church.
How did it go last night, Jesse?
They said that the church has agreed...
..together on a group... .. as a group...
..that we're ordered to come to church.
And I feel that's where the excommunication is going to come in.
Excommunication is the punishment for attending a non-Amish church.
They face being shunned by their friends and families, cut off from the only world they've ever known.
What they're going to do probably then is like,
they're actually, er...
They're actually going to say that they're now handing us over to the devil.
I don't know if you've ever heard that, but that's how they do.
I mean, um...
So according to the Amish church, the old order Amish, you are sinners.
Yes, because we're...
.. leaving the church and going out into the world is how they look at it.
We have chosen to take a deeper faith,
take a deeper Christian faith...
.. so we can walk with God and Jesus...
.. which the Amish, they don't do that.
They came to this new faith with the help of Ephraim.
When I first met Ephraim,
he'd become involved in a growing evangelical movement with a clear target.
I filmed him, along with other born-again Christians,
setting up a huge tent right in the heart of Amish country.
They call them tent meetings, a bunch of churches being together, singing and preaching the word of God.
They were here on a mission to convert the Amish, and at the centre of their campaign was the Bible.
Amish Bibles are written in an old form of German that few understand.
But reading the Bible in English is prohibited.
It breaks the Amish reliance on the authority of their elders.
THEY SING
It is a sin to do it today,
keep the people in darkness,
by giving them a Bible
in a language that they do not understand,
and telling them and warning them not to read it in English.
God have mercy!
These tent meetings were just part of a larger conflict
between the Amish elders and the new faith of Ephraim and others like him.
There's a lot of Amish people that have been warned not to come to them,
for fear that they would then desire to leave the Amish culture.
They could be excommunicated for attending.
Elsie was amongst those who were won over to this new faith.
Jesse followed.
He got on his knees and started praying.
After he stopped praying, I said, "So, would you go to heaven?"
He said, "Yes, I would," and I said, "Why would you go to heaven?"
He said, "Because of what Jesus has done for me."
And that's not what he said an hour before. So I knew he was a new man.
So I asked him, if the community is going to reject him,
will he still follow Christ, and he goes, "Yeah." He said, "I have no choice."
It was just like,
the fear of rejection was gone.
Jesse and Elsie started coming with Ephraim here,
to Charity Christian Fellowship, one of the main evangelical churches campaigning to convert the Amish.
Father, help us during this time of need,
need for fellowship and wisdom and guidance.
Thank you for this.
Their Amish family are unhappy with their decision and don't want them to go.
Amen.
Thank you, Lord.
Elsie, Jesse mentioned earlier that you've received a phone call from your father.
Well, I guess it was one last attempt to see what he can do
to get us to change our minds before we get excommunicated.
If he doesn't agree with anything I believe and I can't agree with his view, you know?
Elsie and Jesse are part of a growing exodus,
leaving their traditions and their families for modern evangelical Christianity.
Ephraim and his family are arriving back after months of travelling.
They don't have a house of their own, so they'll be staying with friends from his new church.
Hi, Esther! Hi, Ephraim. God bless you.
So in the bedroom inside the office, right?
That's a huge camera. The first thing to do is find a place to live.
Ephraim is praying he can find a house for free.
We're looking at a house tomorrow.
Let's see if it's what we want.
I don't know, yeah, we just trust in the Lord.
We'll take a peek at it tomorrow.
They say they have a produce stand that we can help work,
and feed some heifers, maybe to exchange the rent, but we'll see.
It's not mine to figure out. I just need to pray, that's all.
A few days later, I caught up with Ephraim.
He'd already found a house, and wanted to get some help moving in.
We're trying to figure out who's going to help us to move in tomorrow.
Some of my brothers are going to come, and their wives, hopefully.
This will be your family who are still Amish?
Yes, my family is still all Amish.
His Amish family won't help if it means consorting with people from Charity, Ephraim's new church.
They wanted to know if there's other people there who are excommunicated.
OK. I got to figure out a way... who's going to drive and my brothers can ride along.
Even though he's no longer part of their church,
Ephraim still finds himself having to work around the Amish rules.
In the end, he finds a workable compromise.
His Amish family have packed everything up,
and people from Charity church are doing the unpacking.
Unlike the Amish, they don't mind being filmed, if it helps do God's work.
If somebody doesn't want to be on camera, just tell him.
# If heaven's not my home
# Then, Lord, what will I do?
# The angels beckon me from heaven's open door... #
The house is on a farm, and Ephraim's struck a deal with the owner.
In the summer months, he'll do some work around the farm
and run the owner's roadside fruit and veg stand.
In exchange, they'll live rent free.
It seems Ephraim's prayers have been answered.
Exactly what we wanted.
Well, we didn't, we just wanted to work somewhere so we can work for the farmer in exchange for rent.
So we found it.
But there's more than rent to consider.
Ephraim is counting on God to provide for all their financial needs.
CHILDREN SHOUT
It is, it's still, it's a bit...
You know, even though the Lord has given us this place
for what we prayed for, it's still that thought, "What if he doesn't supply money?"
Is it still a little bit scary? It is a little scary, yeah.
Ephraim's new home is deep in Amish country.
But that's not to say it's completely separate from the outside world.
Seeing the Amish like this in rural isolation, it might appear that they live apart from everyone else.
But the reality is quite different.
For the most part, they live right alongside the modern world.
Driving around, I found the freeways of Pennsylvania regularly jammed up by slow-moving Amish.
You'd think this day-to-day contact would be the death of their culture, but it isn't.
Even when rebellion and teenage hormones kick in, the Amish have a way of dealing with it.
Oh, my God!
These young guys hanging out are, believe it or not, Amish. 300 horsepower.
In their late teens, Amish kids are allowed to run wild
before they join the church, and get a taste of living in the outside world.
With the Amish work ethic drilled into them from early childhood,
many of these guys are earning good money,
which is why one particular form their freedom takes is hot rods.
I'm told some will also be using their buying power
to try the effects of eye-watering amounts of drink and drugs, but that's not something I got to film.
Surprisingly enough, the vast majority of these wild teenagers
will return to the fold, get baptised into the Amish church
and trade in their fast cars for slow-moving buggies.
They go back because they've been taught from birth
they'll go to hell if they don't live by the Amish rules.
And they believe it wholeheartedly.
But this fear of hell which holds them together is now tearing the Amish apart.
Born-again Christians promise them a guaranteed escape from hell, and an end to their fear.
It's a powerful message and the Amish are ripe for it.
It's Sunday morning.
I've set up my camera down the road from Elsie and Jess's house
to get some shots of their Amish brethren on their way to church.
Elsie and Jesse have been summoned to appear before the whole congregation
so their excommunication is made public.
How are you feeling about today?
I feel pretty positive. I mean
since we started, you know, going this direction, we haven't...
.. once really regretted it, and I don't think we would ever.
Despite her conviction, the prospect of standing before the Amish elders
is daunting, and they haven't decided whether they'll attend or not.
Jesse used to look to the Amish rules to make every decision.
Now, he's turning to the Bible.
"And God said to Solomon because this was in thine heart
"and thou have not asked for riches, wealth or honour,
"nor the life of thine enemies, as wisdom and knowledge for thyself..."
Something in the passage he's chosen seems to have settled the matter for Jesse.
What have you decided to do this morning?
It really feels the Lord has laid it on our hearts that if... he...
if we're not going to Amish Church any more, why do we need to go when we get excommunicated?
They don't want us anyway.
Having decided not to face the Amish, they'll be going to their new church instead.
The preacher is giving them a lift in his car.
The Amish will carry on without them.
Elsie and Jesse will still be expelled in their absence.
They've now irrevocably severed their links with the Amish.
CONGREGATION SINGS
Elsie and Jesse are now full members of Charity Christian Fellowship,
despite the best efforts of their families to convince them otherwise.
THEY SING
The Charity Church just does not have a good name among the Amish.
My sister said they heard from someone else that
the church at Charity is a cult, you know, like a cult thing, it's not about Jesus Christ.
THEY SING
Father in heaven, we thank you this morning. Thank you, God,
for meeting with us, Lord.
We pray for the Muslims, across the world, during this time of Ramadan.
We pray, Lord, that somehow you would point to them Jesus...
All around the packed church, I see Amish in transition to the modern world.
Most of the women have replaced the Amish head covering with simple scarves.
Some of the men still dress and shave in the Amish way,
while others are in the process of shedding the look.
It's full of people just like Elsie and Jesse.
Father, we pray for our brother Steve as he continues to minister and work with the Amish
in the southern end of the county. Thank you, Lord. Pray the soul of Jesus.
Ephraim was instrumental in convincing Jesse to leave the Amish.
And so, when Jesse approached him after the service,
I expected the huge step he'd taken to be acknowledged somehow.
But there was nothing.
When Ephraim was excommunicated, he'd gone to the Amish Church to proclaim his new faith.
He'd hoped Jesse would do the same.
Jesse's decision to come here instead has not gone down as well as he'd hoped with his friend.
Everyone behind the trees!
Today, Ephraim's got a bunch of his Christian brethren together to pull down a house.
The house, which belongs to a good friend of his,
will be torn down piece by piece and then rebuilt from scratch.
They had mould in their house so they've closed up everything tightly,
and they came back and the walls were all mouldy.
And the Bible says
that if there's mould there and it increases after you close the windows
and doors for ten days, it increases, then you have to tear it down and burn it.
Don't let one stone upon the other stone.
And so, just as the Old Testament says, they're taking all the stones,
plaster and timber to an unclean place and burning the lot.
They're following the Bible to the very letter.
It seems this new faith Ephraim follows is in many ways
just as uncompromising as the Amish Church he's left.
CHILDREN CHATTER
Ephraim has given up working so that he can spread the Gospel.
This morning, he's taken delivery of some car stickers and signs.
Maybe this one here. I like this one.
"The fool has said there is no God."
Psalms 14, verse 1.
If you're going to a big city,
you'll have 10,000 people will see your van,
and 10,000 people are going to have to think about something they hadn't thought about before.
I'm hoping that a couple of my friends will put these on their buggies.
I think it will look really nice to have something like that on their buggies.
If someone put one of those on a buggy, what kind of response would they get?
Yes, it would be frowned upon very much.
The Amish have this saying that they say, "You don't need to use
"words to win, you just live your life and let people see...
"..let people see the life of Christ in you."
So they would not think it's wise to have Scripture on your car or your buggy.
They'd think you'd be proud.
But if you know there's a hurricane coming and it's going to touch down in a certain area,
you've got to get out of the houses and move, because they'll die,
so I think it's important that we
talk about the message.
Can I give you a gospel message? Thank you.
You're welcome.
Can I give a gospel message to you? No, thank you.
All right. There's a funfair going on in the nearby town today.
But Ephraim's set up his signs just outside.
I don't want to be connected with the fair.
It's a wicked place. The whole thing is about money, and they're all trying
to get rich, trying to entertain, trying to satisfy their longings.
There's the gazebo, some of the pictures are really
demonic, you got the dragon trains, you've got
the evil house on the other street,
and it's just...
It's a place where I don't want to be.
A gospel message for you. Do you want to be in heaven?
All right. Don't stay too long in there, it's a wicked place.
It's what you make of it, I guess. OK, it's not what you make of it, it's what it is.
Here's a gospel message for you.
Thank you. You're welcome.
People are more receptive here than in England.
In England they've been taught Darwin
quite...
a few years more than we have here.
The Bible says that in the beginning God created the world in six days,
and that's what's true, that's the truth.
That's what happened in six days.
But Darwin doesn't believe that way.
Or he didn't. He does believe that way now.
Darwin now is saying, "Yes, Jesus was the Christ, I didn't acknowledge it in the past,
"but he is, and I wish I would have," you know. Darwin is in hell today, according to the Scriptures.
OK. How many fives are in 16?
This literal reading of the Bible is something he's determined to share with his children.
Ephraim and Amanda don't send their children to school.
Instead, they do all the teaching themselves at home.
We do books. But then we also learn through life.
We butcher chickens, we... plant a garden.
All these things are learning experiences.
When Amanda says that butchering chickens can be part of their schooling, she really means it.
CHICKEN CLUCKS
But the lesson today is not so much about biology as it is about theology.
The Bible says that the life is in the blood.
So what it means is...
..that's what makes something live.
Step back, Samuel.
.. is the blood, so when the blood's all gone, children,
the animal is dead.
And when Jesus was on the cross, his life was dropped out on the ground for us and so when Jesus' blood
becomes ours we do have life because his life, his blood has life in it.
It's the day after the Elsie and Jesse's excommunication.
The Amish believe they've been deceived into going to Charity Church,
and have handed their flesh to the devil.
I've come to see how they're coping with that.
It sounds very harsh. Yes, but often what people do is,
like people who leave the Amish, if that happens
they'll afterwards just
like pray, pray to God and ask him to remove that curse.
I feel if we pray about it, I think he would.
The Amish think that Elsie and Jesse are now living in a place of temptation and deceit.
They have a word for this place.
They call it the "world".
The Amish keep themselves separate by having countless rules for every aspect of their lives.
Without those rules to guide them, Elsie and Jesse are now faced with bewildering choices.
The first thing they must decide is what to wear.
When we were Amish,
the Amish Church decides a lot of things, you know, like how the clothes
should be made, and the colours we should wear, and the things that we can have and not have.
Nothing is forbidden any more.
They can have anything they want.
But after a lifetime of rules, they have no experience of making choices independently.
So now it's up to us to decide, you know,
what does God's word say about this or that, you know, and we try to make our decisions based on...
.. what the Bible says.
Ephraim's putting up a fence for his chickens.
I didn't need a set of rules any more to guide my life when I became a Christian.
Because I now have...
Here you go.
.. I now have living inside of me
God himself, who knows the difference between right and wrong,
and so therefore I don't need rules.
Don't point guns. We don't point guns at people.
That is not sober.
Christopher! How are you feeling when you're pointing the gun, sober or foolish?
Sober.
Sober now but how were you feeling then?
Foolish. Foolish.
Yeah, Papa doesn't want you to do that. We want to stay sober.
Thank you.
I want something else to govern my children rather than a set of rules.
I want them to know why,
why don't we
walk around immodestly?
And I want them to know it's because the Bible says
instead of having a set of rules.
The Bible talks about the sin of nakedness,
I didn't know that.
Isn't that a rule as well in a way?
It would be something that the Bible would have as a rule,
I guess, although it's not a rule, it's part of a life, part of a...
Yes, it's part of a life.
It's much bigger than a rule, isn't it?
I've often asked why the Amish do things the way they do.
The answer is always the same.
You don't ask why, they say.
It's just how we do.
The Amish are taught to obey without question, and conform.
CONGREGATION SINGS
At first glance, the congregation of Charity Church doesn't appear to be
all that different to the Amish Church that so many of them have come from.
Although Charity claims not to have rules like the Amish,
their lives are governed by what they read in the Bible.
And they too keep their distance from the modern world.
But although it might not seem much of a difference, coming to this church
is probably the biggest change they'll ever make in their lives.
Today, Ephraim's trying to drum up more customers for the produce stand.
Stand over there and tell me how this looks.
They live rent free in the summer in exchange for running the stand.
But once winter sets in, the family will have to start paying their way.
Wow, this is such a busy road.
It is a busy road.
The landlord recently offered them another deal.
If sales are better than usual, they won't pay any rent at all.
The stand's been far busier than they expected.
This wasn't the plan when they first moved in here.
Right now, it looks like a full time job.
I really struggle with, OK, I've got to come out and sell stuff.
The customers are here, flowers, I can sell things,
I can make it happen.
And I really just have to say, "God, please, you know, take that from me."
Look, if we sell flowers we sell flowers, I told him last night
I said, "OK, Lord, if this stand does better than normal
"we can be rent free, so you're going to make it happen,
"I'm not going to make it happen."
OK, maybe I should make signs,
put a sign in every telephone pole and just, you know, come out and really make stuff happen.
I said, "No, I'm not going to do it."
I told God this morning, if people need stuff then they're going to buy it somewhere, make them stop here.
Ephraim wants God to provide for all his family's needs.
But even though the rent is covered,
there are other financial pressures to deal with as well.
During the course of my first film with the family,
Ephraim's daughter Marie contracted leukaemia.
It was the beginning of years of expensive treatment.
So what will you be sending us, and what will it cost?
I will have to check, I thought we were sending everything.
Although she's recovered now, she still needs chemotherapy.
Ephraim wanted to stop buying the medicine
and instead rely on God to keep the cancer at bay.
But the state wouldn't let him.
We were going to take Marie off the chemo for a month
and we were going to stay off, and the law said
we have to go back on, and so that was really a stressful time,
saying, "Well, hang on, the Bible says that
"we believe she's healed, we want to continue down the natural route,"
but the law is saying you need to continue or we'll make her continue.
In his old life, all his medical expenses
would have been covered in full by the Amish.
But now, he's relying on occasional donations from friends at Charity.
and his savings, which are disappearing fast.
Well done, Marie.
2.5 milligrams, is that correct?
OK, that's a very good price on that.
On the way out of the hospital,
he stops to try and get a better deal for the medicine Marie needs.
So there's not much savings on that.
So the only one that we save on is dexamethasone.
OK, thank you. Bye.
Ephraim's plan was to stop working and give all his time to God.
The way it's looking now, he'll need a miracle to carry on.
Amish children are taught only the basics.
They have their own schools and leave at the age of 14.
Now that they've joined Charity,
Elsie has to come to grips with home schooling.
Is it quite a lot for you to learn as well?
Yes, it is, like these books,
these are different from what I had when I was going to school.
The Amish schools they have other kinds that are more, more simple.
So some things in here
is a little bit challenging for me.
This morning we'll do a page in letters and sounds.
It's a Phonics Seatwork Text.
With three children, it seems a lot for her to take on.
And what's more, Elsie is expecting another child.
Hurt? How about in hurt?
Jesse wants to buy a car,
but he's having trouble selling his buggy.
While only Amish would want it, no Amish would buy it off him.
Can you explain to me why it is
that they wouldn't be able to buy?
They don't want to help us
to something different than what we were
brought up from.
The buggy is fundamental to the Amish way of life.
It's their means of going about their lives
as cars are totally forbidden.
Buying a car is a big change and it'll transform the way they live.
But a car is not always a blessing.
The exhaust pipe on Ephraim's car is bust,
and he's having a go at fixing it himself.
It's a bit of a learning experience.
This is not the kind of thing you had to do
when you had a horse and buggy!
No, horse and buggy was, rather you had to figure out
what was wrong with the horse!
If he got sick, then I'd know. I know how to take care of horses.
But vans is a new thing.
But if I'm going to be using the van, I need to
learn how they work, otherwise
I'll spend a lot of money on paying people to fix my van.
That's not my vision.
He's going to replace the exhaust on his car
with one from this wreck.
This was Ephraim's first car.
But a few months ago while he was on his way to church, he rolled it.
The whole family was inside at the time.
We were singing, having a beautiful time
and the van came around like this and rolled,
it flipped in the air the first time and it came down right here,
and Amanda got the jar of it,
and then we rolled again and landed on the four wheels
and Amanda, she went unconscious for just a little bit.
But there was people there right away and they called the ambulance,
but it was icy and it was just... I got out and I said,
"Lord, what is this? We had an accident, we rolled twice,
"but we're not hurt, and what are you trying to say?"
And so I went on a fast on Monday,
and Tuesday morning the Lord woke me early, my quiet time,
and showed me that I was proud, I was actually proud of this van,
I was proud of how the Lord had given me this, and that we had prayed
and prayed and prayed, and then God gave us this van for 900,
and I was proud about that fact, that I hadn't missed it.
So I repented of my pride
and wanting people to think that I'm spiritual.
So it was a good lesson.
And by God's grace no-one was hurt.
And the Lord provided another van
that has much less mileage on and for even less money.
Cheap Heaps in Lancaster City
is just what its name suggests; a budget used car dealer.
Jesse and Elsie are looking for something with plenty of room.
Elsie is now seven-and-a-half months pregnant.
OK. What are you looking for?
The red Mercury Villager.
Let's go out outside, guys, take a look.
This one has 5,000 miles on it.
OK? And a brand new inspection until next November.
How does it run?
Runs very, very nice. OK.
You can go on a test drive if you'd like to do that. OK.
How does it feel to drive this?
Good.
It's a bit of a shock to see Jesse behind the wheel.
But like many Amish men, during his wild youth, he had a car.
It's fun driving.
But I'm not sure about this one.
There's something odd about the electrics.
So how much is this?
How much do they want for this van?
3,300. 3,300? Yeah.
And how many miles does it have?
125,000.
Is that pretty good?
Yeah, they said it is.
Jesse may still be able to drive,
but his navigation skills are a bit rusty.
On the way back, we get lost.
It's three quarters of an hour
before we find our way back to Cheap Heaps.
Do you have any other questions for me?
Is there a switch for the interior light in that car?
I'm sure there is. I can check it for you.
Typically, it's just a matter of... did you turn it both ways?
I thought I did.
I didn't turn it past the symbols. I'll check it for you.
There's more to buying a car than knowing how to drive,
and they seem overwhelmed by it.
Are you guys looking to make a purchase right away?
Yeah, Saturday we're looking at making a purchase
but we're going to look at a few other vehicles first.
Just as they're about to test another cheap heap,
Jesse gets a call from Ephraim.
With God's help, he reckons he's found them a good car
from a trustworthy man.
Amen.
I suppose we'll take a look at that.
We should go home and pray about it again.
'Yeah, it's got good tyres on it.
'It's just inspected, it's good till next September. '
Early the next morning, I got a phone call from Jesse.
He was on his way to the hospital with Elsie.
Their baby wasn't due until Christmas,
but six weeks earlier than expected, Elsie had gone into labour.
Father, we pray for Jesse and Elsie, Father,
on their way to the hospital, or maybe there already, for their baby to be born.
Father, we pray in Jesus' name that the baby will be healthy.
Father, we pray against any extra expenses
that could be incurred in the hospital.
Father, we pray that they will not do lots of tests, but would only do
what is necessary for a safe arrival of their new child.
In Jesus' name, amen.
You can go do your chores, children.
PHONE RINGS
Hi, Jesse, it's Eph.
How is everything going?
'It's going good. '
Do they expect the baby to be born today?
'Yeah. '
OK.
How close is the baby to being born?
Any idea? 'Very soon. ' Very soon, OK.
Who is that for?
Andrew, I have some letters for them.
Would you like to take them?
Thank you very much, I will do that, that's really nice of you.
When we arrived at the hospital,
Elsie had already given birth to a baby girl.
They named her Hannah Rose.
But she lived for only an hour.
If it was God's will, no matter what the doctors or nurses do,
they will not revive that child.
If that child were to go,
he's going to take it.
# Jesus has taken a beautiful bird
# Out of our garden of love... #
The funeral was held two days later at Charity church.
Standing out amongst the parked cars,
I saw one solitary Amish buggy.
Elsie's parents and some of her sisters
have violated their Amish rules
and come this once to a non-Amish church.
Most of Jesse's family stayed away.
After the burial, there was a meal in the basement of the church.
But none of their Amish family stayed.
It was a step too far for them.
It was a hard day but God is working things...
things out, through this.
It has really brought our families together.
And we hadn't seen most of our families since spring.
So it was, I think God used that
to break down some...
some barriers that had been there, some walls.
During the funeral your parents were there with you.
Yes, yes, they were. It was very special.
I got to sit beside my mum
and my dad, they were sitting next to me,
and that was very special, yeah.
And we prayed that
they would hear a good message..
and we prayed that some seeds...
I think some seeds have been sown.
They heard the gospel.
This move towards evangelical Christianity
is splitting Amish families.
And it's a conflict that's far from over.
There's no chance Elsie and Jesse can ever go back to the way they were.
The only hope they have of getting close to their families again
is if they too leave the Amish.
With winter approaching, Ephraim's closing down the produce stand.
We're done with the produce for this year, and so we'll take it down
and put it in the barn until next spring
and we'll put it back up again.
His plan to live rent free all year round, has not worked out.
We need to come up with $800 a month yet for rent and utilities
for November, December, January, February and maybe March.
We might be doing flowers in March ready so.
Four months for sure, maybe five. That's nice.
So far Ephraim's been relying on God to provide for his family's needs.
He's been kept going with envelopes of cash,
given anonymously,
most probably by sympathetic members of his church.
But with God no longer providing,
Ephraim's got no other choice but to take a job
doing building work.
I expected him to provide.
You know, OK, it's October 20th, 25th
and there's nothing, nothing, not a dollar!
21st was a Sunday, I thought, "Well, maybe someone's going to walk up
"and give me an envelope."
Monday morning I said, "OK, Lord, there's nothing here."
We can live for a little bit...
..we're going to have to see what we can do for a couple of weeks,
but, you know, what's the plan?
We go to pay rent; the rent is $800 a month too.
Giddy up, horses!
As well as the paid work,
he's come up with another very Amish plan
to bring in a bit of money.
I haven't done this in a while.
This is going to be fun.
He's bought this horse cheap and plans to fatten it up
and sell it on for a profit.
As a bonus, the horse also gives him an alternative
when his car's not working.
Ephraim has always been at odds with the culture he grew up in.
But at the same time, he's never completely escaped the Amish.
Though he's left the church, his simple values are not so different to those he was raised with.
But still, the Amish elders see him as a threat.
And not without reason.
If this move towards evangelical Christianity takes hold,
it could be the end of the Amish as they are now.
But it could also be the beginning of something new.
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